lum-development officer for the Hong KongEducation Bureau, who is sitting in on theclass. It is meant to increase students’ aware-ness of their society and the world, to broad-en their knowledge base and expose them todiffering perspectives, and to enhance theircritical-thinking skills. Last year, the gov-ernment handed out grants of more than$41,000, to help schools build their liberal-studies programs.As part of the day’s lesson, Mr. Li is show-ing the students snippets of a news docu-mentary on the demolition of the historicStar Ferry terminal on Hong Kong’s VictoriaHarbour. The pier was pulled down five yearsearlier, before many of these 14- and 15-year-olds can remember, and between segments ofthe film, which features interviews with con-servation activists, urban planners, and envi-ronmentalists, he asks the girls to go to thechalkboard and mark whether or not theysupport the destruction. They do, giggling.At first, nearly all the students indicatethey favor the tear-down, no surprise in acity in which new construction alters the sky-line almost daily. But as they hear argumentsabout the environmental impact and the pier’shistoric significance, many change their vote.This pleases Mr. Yiu. “In almost every les-son,” he says, “we’re trying to get them to seeissues from multiple perspectives.”Mr. Li leads the class smoothly through adiscussion of conflict and compromise, butlater, over tea and cake, he admits that adjust-ing to the new coursework hasn’t been easy.There are no textbooks, and teachers, pulledfrom different disciplines, have struggledto master the subject matter. Mr. Li, whosebackground is in biology, regularly exchang-es tips and lesson plans with other St. Clare’sfaculty and is also working with Mr. Yiu’sagency on training materials and workshopsfor teachers throughout Hong Kong. “Wehave had to learn new skills,” he says.If teachers are uneasy, students and par-ents appear even more so. More than half thestudents surveyed by a Hong Kong educa-tion-policy group said they were not confi-dent of doing well in liberal studies. Parentshave thronged question-and-answer sessionshosted by the Education Bureau and by in-dividual schools; one cornered Mr. Yiu theprevious weekend at a wedding banquet. Thesource of much of the anxiety? How newquestions about liberal studies will affect stu-dents’ scores on the high-school exit exam.Hiring for More Than SkillUncertainty about Hong Kong’s liber-al-education reform, and about the comingchanges in the undergraduate curriculum,have helped drive up applications to Britishuniversities by more than 35 percent. It’s un-derstandable in a culture where a universitydegree is viewed as the final step in a path to-ward a career and where children are expect-ed to provide for their parents in old age.Wang Yu, or David, a third-year Boya Col-lege student, says his parents “were not ex-actly excited” when he decided to switch hismajor from business English to liberal arts,questioning what kind of profession such adegree would lead to. “They’re always wor-ried about practical problems,” he says.There’s some irony at play: Students andparents suspicious about liberal educationcite fears about job prospects, yet it’s busi-ness leaders who are among the loudest voic-es for reform.Jim Leininger is with the Beijing office ofthe human-resources-consulting firm TowersWatson. He recalls one American oil execu-tive frustrated by the lack of participation byChinese employees in brainstorming sessions.These workers are uncomfortable shoutingout possible solutions, Mr. Leininger told theman, because they were educated in a systemwhere “there always is a context where some-thing is right and something is wrong.”It’s not just multinational companies thatexpress concern about graduates’ readinessfor a global work environment. Executives atJapanese companies complain about gradu-ates’ poor critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. “People know their own field,but once they’re outside it, they don’t knowwhere to start,” says Keiko Momii, who con-ducted an employer survey for the country’sNational Institute for Educational Policy Re-search. That was fine, she says, when com-panies hired for life, but today’s employeesneed to be able to shift jobs and careers.

Commentary: O China’s strugglesto reform higher education yieldlessons for the United States. A29.Audio: O ReporterKarin Fischer talksabout Asia’s fascination with the liberalarts, at chronicle.comversities turning out graduates for a manufac-turing economy, he asks, when more than 90percent of the jobs are in the service sector?Whipping out a dry-erase board—“I have touse one of these now that I’ve moved intothe educational domain,” he jokes—he enu-merates the qualities a well-rounded workerneeds to have, such as the capacity to be alifelong learner.“Business people would say there’s some-thing missing” in current graduates, Mr.Chung says. “We can train skill, but we needto hire something more.” If Hong Kong canrevamp its educational system, he predicts,it can serve as a critical bridge between abooming China and the rest of the world.Tapping Into TalentTo help make that happen, Mr. Chung,who attended Whittier College and Hum-

COURTES Y OF S T. CLARE’S GIRLS’ SCHOOLIn Bruno Li’s classroom at St. Clare’s Girls’ School, in Hong Kong, the curriculum includes a mandatory subject known as liberal studies,meant to increase students’ awareness of their society and the world. A similar requirement will hit colleges this fall.boldt State University, both in California,has brought more than two dozen Americanacademics with liberal-arts expertise to actas in-house advisers to Hong Kong univer-sities, through his support of a special Ful-bright Grant program.Many of the efforts at reform tap importedtalent. In addition to the Fulbrighters, Ameri-can and expat professors populate academ-ic leadership positions: The provost at CityUniversity of Hong Kong and the vice presi-dent for academic development at Hong KongPolytechnic University are both hires fromthe University of California system. HaydnH.D. Chen, who spent more than two decadesat the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham-paign, has emphasized liberal education atTunghai University, in Taiwan, since becom-ing president in 2004. The National Univer-sity of Singapore has turned to Yale facultyto help start the nation-state’s first residentialliberal-arts college.David Jaffee didn’t know much about HongKong when he came to spend a Fulbrightyear at City University, but as a former assis-tant vice president for undergraduate studiesat the University of North Florida, he doesknow a lot about the liberal arts.Like others in the program, Mr. Jaffee, aprofessor of sociology, organized faculty-development sessions at Hong Kong’s eightuniversities and helped City University vet itsgeneral-education course proposals. In manyways, he walked away from the experienceimpressed. “We tinker with general educa-tion all the time here, but they were doing itfrom the ground up,” he says, by phone fromFlorida.At the same time, he became concernedthat a lack of familiarity with the tenets ofliberal education was leading some institu-tions and faculty members to construe it verybroadly. Mr. Jaffee recalls a proposal for acourse in computer security. As a straight-forward primer on the subject, he thought itshould not qualify as general education be-cause it didn’t delve into wider social andphilosophical issues like the effect of onlinepiracy on concepts of privacy. But others onthe curriculum panel did not have such ob-jections: “They’d say, ‘It’s general knowledgethat people should have. It’s in a disciplinenot students’ own.’”At Hong Kong Poly, meanwhile, generaleducation will have a decidedly practical fla-vor, with requirements in public speaking,writing, and leadership and interpersonalskills. As a largely engineering and science-oriented university, Poly has historicallyhad few faculty members in the humanities,points out Walter W. Yuen, the vice presidentfor academic development.Other offerings are more interdisciplinary.A philosopher, a biologist, and a mechani-cal engineer at City University, for example,have teamed up to offer a course on the sci-ence of kung fu. At the University of HongKong, students can choose among coursessuch as “Blood, Beliefs, and Biology,” “Cul-tural Heritages in the Contemporary World,”and “Love, Marriage, and Sex in ModernChina.”Tsz Hin Law is loitering in a City Univer-sity hallway, waiting to talk with his profes-sor, Rocío G. Davis, about a general-educa-tion course he is taking, “Reading and Writ-ing America,” one of several dozen in a pilotthis year. “Before, I thought America is allwhite people,” Mr. Law, who introduces him-self with the English name Hennessy, says.But he’s learned about other groups, black,Hispanic—and Amish. “I did a project onthem, a strange culture,” he says. He has en-joyed the course, with its nontraditional sub-Continued on Page A8